You wanna know ME?!

Welcome to the club. I’m still getting to know me myself. In a manner of speaking, that is. There’s the me that I think I know. He’s the one I remember calling his parents while they were out to dinner one night to let them know I was spending the night at a friends house. I was way too high to go home. I didn’t tell them about that. But then there’s the me that God made me as- that he’s MAKING me to be. The one He had planned for. I write as I remember and as I discover. These aren’t really my stories. Or my songs. These are the stories of the God of the Bible, who is revealing Himself to me through His word, through His Spirit, through His creation. So I’m trying to keep track. I hope that somehow the journey I’m on somehow connects with you, as you travel through your own wilderness.

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I’m originally from the Pacific Northwest. If you’re from somewhere, like I am, and you move somewhere-else, it doesn’t take long before you realize that things you thought were normal about you are actually freakish regionally masterminded implants into your character- into your DNA. So, now, if you are already privy to the regional quirks of Puget Sound, and the Pacific Northwest, you know something about me.

I am, among many things, a very fortunate husband. I am a father, four times over. I am a brother 5 times. I love to read books, and I love coffee. I make my own beer. It’s pretty good. I’m a musician. I started playing Bass guitar when I was 9 years old, but when I wasn’t tall enough to play the upright the next year, I switched over to cello. I played cello in college too. And upright bass(I got taller). I played cello through middleschool, and switched to drums in high school. I went to highschool at the same place as Glenn Beck, Hillary Swank, Dallas Malloy, and Kurt Cobain’s little brother. I started playing acoustic guitar my freshman year in college. That was the year I broke my left wrist when I fell through the joists of a deck that wasn’t “decked” yet.

I’ve been a waiter to seniors in a retirement complex. I’ve been a college student, a construction worker, a frozen fish sorter, a terminator-goes-on-the-end-of-these-leads applyer. And I’ve been a painter, and a cabinet-maker, a church worship-leader, and not-bad songwriter. My wife and I have decided that we would be making it a priority to have a parent at home. That’s me. We’re homeschooling, so right now, I have three kids in school, and one who’s in our sort of “pre-school” (which means he sits behind me in a chair and pulls my hair).

After 11 years serving with Westview Church, in Waukee, my wife (“Sugar-Mama”) and I followed God’s voice to partner with a group of church planting maniacs with Walnut Creek Church, in Des Moines, Iowa. It’s been a wild, fruitful adventure, figuring out what God’s business is on the southside of Des Moines. Because you know, God’s kingdom doesn’t look the same here as it did there- it focusses on the same Jesus, and promotes the same kingdom, but what one neighborhood needs isn’t the same as what another neighborhood needs. God’s kingdom addresses every need.

Anyway, I think a lot of things. Somethings I think or say might not necessarily be comfortably held at Walnut Creek. And that’s okay. Walnut Creek Church’s congregations all worship a pretty big Jesus. And He’ll set me straight. I’m confident in that.